Cont: Brexit: Now What? 7th heaven...

[ceptimus]

Oh Nige!
"Nigel Farage is facing mockery after he claimed the new European Commission president lacked "legitimacy" because she won just 52 per cent of the vote.

Mr Farage said Ursula von der Leyen had "power but no legitimacy" after she scraped in by nine votes in a ballot in the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Critics were quick to point out that the incoming head of the EU executive won by the same margin as the Leave campaign during the 2016 EU referendum - when the result was 52 per cent to 48 per cent."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-ursula-von-der-leyen-brexit-party-vote-eu-commission-juncker-a9008501.html

It's a little different in that she only got 52% even though she was the only candidate.

 

[Vixen]

EU Commission's First Vice-President, Frans Timmermans is pretty scathing about the Brits' Leave plans. He claims David Davies didn't have any. He says, in an interview due to be broadcast Thursday in BBC's Panorama:

In an interview in March 2019 with the BBC's Nick Robinson, Mr Timmermans said he found it "shocking" how unprepared the UK team was when it began negotiations.

"We thought they are so brilliant," he said. "That in some vault somewhere in Westminster there will be a Harry Potter-like book with all the tricks and all the things in it to do."

But after seeing the then-Brexit Secretary David Davis - who resigned over his disagreements with the deal - speaking in public, his mind changed.

"I saw him not coming, not negotiating, grandstanding elsewhere [and] I thought, 'Oh my God, they haven't got a plan, they haven't got a plan.'

"That was really shocking, frankly, because the damage if you don't have a plan...

"Time's running out and you don't have a plan. It's like Lance Corporal Jones, you know, 'Don't panic, don't panic!' Running around like idiots."

If he thought Davies was 'like an idiot' heaven knows what he must have thought of Chris Grayling and his planned ferry boats Dunkirk-style to Bruges.

Well, at least it could be loosely called a 'plan', even if totally stark staring bonkers.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

It's a little different in that she only got 52% even though she was the only candidate.

Whereas there were many clear and different varieties of the Leave plan discussed and presented right?

 

[The Don]

BBC article giving 10 reasons why Brexit has not yet happened.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49008826

 

[The Don]

Michel Barnier is upping the rhetoric around a no-deal Brexit:

The UK will have to "face the consequences" if it opts to leave without a deal, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator has said.

Michel Barnier told BBC Panorama the thrice-rejected agreement negotiated by Theresa May was the "only way to leave the EU in an orderly manner".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49021081

 

[Mr Fied]

It's a little different in that she only got 52% even though she was the only candidate.

The question of a second referendum was raised by Mr Farage in an interview with the Mirror in which he said: "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."

There could be unstoppable demand for a re-run of the EU referendum if Remain wins by a narrow margin on 23 June, UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36306681

 

[catsmate]

I struggle with the very notion that it would be undemocratic to hold a vote. Wait, wut?

Another vote, after people have realised how stupid and damaging Brexit will be, might not give the result the Brexiteers want. Simples...

 

[The Don]

More predictions about the economic effects of a no-deal Brexit, this time from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR):

In its first assessment of the economic impact of a no-deal scenario, the OBR said the UK economy would contract in 2020 before recovering in 2021.

This would come as tariffs of 4% were imposed on goods traded with the EU - up from zero currently - although it does not expect there to be disruption at the border.

In this scenario, "heightened uncertainty and declining confidence" would deter investment, while higher trade barriers with the EU would "weigh on exports".

"Together, these push the economy into recession, with asset prices and the pound falling sharply," it said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49027889

 

[ohms]

Having a quick read of the executive summary of the report and found these two sentences interesting, if a little worrying:

7 These decisions will of course need to be taken against the unusually uncertain economic and fiscal backdrop created by different possible outcomes to Brexit. Our March forecast was conditioned on the UK securing a deal and exiting smoothly. Given the leadership contenders’ willingness explicitly to countenance a ‘no-deal’ exit on October 31, we use the ‘stress test’ in this FRR to illustrate the potential fiscal impact of a no-deal, no-transition Brexit scenario set out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its April 2019 World Economic Outlook. This scenario is not necessarily the most likely outcome and it is relatively benign compared to some (for example, assuming limited short-term border disruptions). But it still adds around £30 billion a year to borrowing from 2020-21 onwards and around 12 per cent of GDP to net debt by 2023-24, compared with our March forecast baseline.

8 A more disruptive or disorderly scenario, closer to the stress test we considered two years ago, could hit the public finances much harder.

 

[The Don]

Having a quick read of the executive summary of the report and found these two sentences interesting, if a little worrying:

7 These decisions will of course need to be taken against the unusually uncertain economic and fiscal backdrop created by different possible outcomes to Brexit. Our March forecast was conditioned on the UK securing a deal and exiting smoothly. Given the leadership contenders’ willingness explicitly to countenance a ‘no-deal’ exit on October 31, we use the ‘stress test’ in this FRR to illustrate the potential fiscal impact of a no-deal, no-transition Brexit scenario set out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its April 2019 World Economic Outlook. This scenario is not necessarily the most likely outcome and it is relatively benign compared to some (for example, assuming limited short-term border disruptions). But it still adds around £30 billion a year to borrowing from 2020-21 onwards and around 12 per cent of GDP to net debt by 2023-24, compared with our March forecast baseline.

8 A more disruptive or disorderly scenario, closer to the stress test we considered two years ago, could hit the public finances much harder.

Just as well that there's no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside

 

[Samson]

Random comment from a realist

Let's be honest here.

Most were pretty aware that they voted for Brexit on the basis of short term pain long term gain

--

Let's be honest, Brexit is turning out to be short term pain for long term pain.

Why people voted for that, I will never know.

 

[Tolls]

£30 billion a year?
That's at least 50% more than the weekly "savings" posted on that bus.

This Brexit doesn't strike me as much of a bargain.
Indeed I might go so far as to suggest that those pushing for it might be a little delusional, if not outright bonkers-in-the-head.

 

[Nessie]

Not good enough. The article is from 2017 - well after the referendum, and only says 'the term is thought to have originated...' That's not a cite. I want to see a non-faked actual cite where we can be sure of a date when the terms 'hard Brexit' or 'soft Brexit' were used. I'm not even pressing for the 'brexit' word as I'm not sure when that was coined - as long as the words 'hard / soft' are used they could be paired with 'departure' or some other similar word.

It's got to be in context though - something like 'leaving the EU will be hard', won't suffice. We need something like a newspaper report, a transcript of a speech, or similar, that uses the terms and has a date.

I still have to read the other posts in the thread, but so far it seems my claim has not been refuted...

I claim the terms were used before the referendum, it is up to you to refute that claim...

 

[Nessie]

Hard Brexit still isn't part of the leave plan: virtually every Leave supporter, including Boris, Rees Mogg, and such continue to maintain that they would much prefer to leave with a deal...

What deal would that be then? If they had a deal they agreed upon, we would know about by now.

 

[Nessie]

Oh Nige!
"Nigel Farage is facing mockery after he claimed the new European Commission president lacked "legitimacy" because she won just 52 per cent of the vote.

Mr Farage said Ursula von der Leyen had "power but no legitimacy" after she scraped in by nine votes in a ballot in the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Critics were quick to point out that the incoming head of the EU executive won by the same margin as the Leave campaign during the 2016 EU referendum - when the result was 52 per cent to 48 per cent."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-ursula-von-der-leyen-brexit-party-vote-eu-commission-juncker-a9008501.html

If leave had lost the referendum by 52 to 48, they would still be campaigning to leave and have another referendum asap.

Such is the hypocrisy of the leave side and Farage in particular.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I struggle with the very notion that it would be undemocratic to hold a vote. Wait, wut?

Well, the valid argument against a 2nd referendum is that it's obviously anti-democratic to be forced to vote again and again until you give the right answer.

The problem is that legitimate demands for a vote on a different question (i.e. This isn't what you voted for, but will it do?) are being drowned out by raging arguments for and against a pointless repeat of the 2016 vote, which didn't settle anything then and wouldn't settle anything now.

It makes me furious that there are still idiots clamouring to vote again because they lost, because they're a gift to those who want to bat away any reasoned argument by just lumping it all together as "2nd referendum" and claiming it's not democratic.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

What deal would that be then? If they had a deal they agreed upon, we would know about by now.

The magic deal that everyone claims to be able to negotiate up to the point where they are actually responsible for doing so and then they seem to struggle and resign.

 

[Samson]

More predictions about the economic effects of a no-deal Brexit, this time from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR):



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49027889

The pound is low, but not pricing a no deal Brexit IMO.
Any Brexit looks like more own goals than you could shake a stick at, so it is all fiddling while Rome burns.

 

[Vixen]

If leave had lost the referendum by 52 to 48, they would still be campaigning to leave and have another referendum asap.

Such is the hypocrisy of the leave side and Farage in particular.

When one considers the sheer millions of pounds the likes of Russian-backed Arron Banks ploughed into it, the £100K inducement to NI bypassing electoral rules about donations, the fraudulent activities of Cambridge Analytica targetting Facebook users and their network of friends with anti-EU propaganda it's amazing the Brexiteers only won by 2%.

When a corporation wants to change its articles of association a special resolution needs to be passed approved by two-thirds of the members so I'd like to know who's responsible for deciding it only needed 50% of the people who bothered to turn out to vote to change the UK constitution.

 

[Tolls]

I claim the terms were used before the referendum, it is up to you to refute that claim...

To be fair to ceptimus, that's not really how it works.
He can't possibly prove that, at least not without a pointless amount of work.

The onus is, really, on you to show it was in use.

As for me, as I said earlier, I don;t actually see the importance of whether it existed before or after the referendum. I really don't see what's gained or lost either way. Strikes me as a complete distraction.